Splitting dates into intervals using Start Date and End Date

Question

I have scenario where I need to split the given date range into monthly intervals.

For example, the input is like below:

StartDate   EndDate
2018-01-21  2018-01-29
2018-01-30  2018-02-23
2018-02-24  2018-03-31
2018-04-01  2018-08-16
2018-08-17  2018-12-31

And the expected output should be like below:

StartDate   EndDate
2018-01-21  2018-01-29
2018-01-30  2018-01-31
2018-02-01  2018-02-23
2018-02-24  2018-02-28
2018-03-01  2018-03-31
2018-04-01  2018-04-30
2018-05-01  2018-05-31
2018-06-01  2018-06-30
2018-07-01  2018-07-31
2018-08-01  2018-08-16
2018-08-17  2018-08-31
2018-09-01  2018-09-30
2018-10-01  2018-10-31
2018-11-01  2018-11-30
2018-12-01  2018-12-31

Below is the sample data.

CREATE TABLE #Dates
(
    StartDate DATE,
    EndDate DATE
);


INSERT INTO #Dates
(
    StartDate,
    EndDate
)
VALUES
('2018-01-21', '2018-01-29'),
('2018-01-30', '2018-02-23'),
('2018-02-24', '2018-03-31'),
('2018-04-01', '2018-08-16'),
('2018-08-17', '2018-12-31');

Answer 1

You can use a recursive CTE. The basic idea is to start with the first date 2018-01-21 and build a list of all months' start and end date upto the last date 2018-12-31. Then inner join with your data and clamp the dates if necessary.

DECLARE @Dates TABLE (StartDate DATE, EndDate DATE);
INSERT INTO @Dates (StartDate, EndDate) VALUES
('2018-01-21', '2018-01-29'),
('2018-01-30', '2018-02-23'),
('2018-02-24', '2018-03-31'),
('2018-04-01', '2018-08-16'),
('2018-08-17', '2018-12-31');

WITH minmax AS (
    -- clamp min(start date) to 1st day of that month
    SELECT DATEADD(MONTH, DATEDIFF(MONTH, CAST('00010101' AS DATE), MIN(StartDate)), CAST('00010101' AS DATE)) AS mindate, MAX(EndDate) AS maxdate
    FROM @Dates
), months AS (
    -- calculate first and last day of each month
    -- e.g. for February 2018 it'll return 2018-02-01 and 2018-02-28
    SELECT mindate AS date01, DATEADD(DAY, -1, DATEADD(MONTH, 1, mindate)) AS date31, maxdate
    FROM minmax
    UNION ALL
    SELECT DATEADD(MONTH, 1, prev.date01), DATEADD(DAY, -1, DATEADD(MONTH, 2, prev.date01)), maxdate
    FROM months AS prev
    WHERE prev.date31 < maxdate
)
SELECT
    -- clamp start and end date to first and last day of corresponding month
    CASE WHEN StartDate < date01 THEN date01 ELSE StartDate END,
    CASE WHEN EndDate > date31 THEN date31 ELSE EndDate END
FROM months
INNER JOIN @Dates ON date31 >= StartDate AND EndDate >= date01

If rCTE is not an option you can always JOIN with a table of numbers or table of dates (the idea above still applies).

Answer 2

You can Cross Apply with the Master..spt_values table to get a row for each month between StartDate and EndDate.

SELECT * 
into #dates
FROM (values 
('2018-01-21', '2018-01-29')
,('2018-01-30', '2018-02-23')
,('2018-02-24', '2018-03-31')
,('2018-04-01', '2018-08-16')
,('2018-08-17', '2018-12-31')
)d(StartDate  , EndDate)



SELECT
    SplitStart as StartDate 
    ,case when enddate < SplitEnd then enddate else SplitEnd end as EndDate
FROM  #dates d
cross apply (
    SELECT 
        cast(dateadd(mm, number, dateadd(dd, (-datepart(dd, d.startdate) +1) * isnull((number / nullif(number, 0)), 0), d.startdate)) as date) as SplitStart
        ,cast(dateadd(dd, -datepart(dd, dateadd(mm, number+1, startdate)), dateadd(mm, number+1, startdate)) as date) as SplitEnd
    FROM 
    master..spt_values 
    where type = 'p' 
      and number between 0 and (((year(enddate) - year(startdate)) * 12) +  month(enddate) - month(startdate))   
) s

drop table #dates